1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing device and method, a recording medium, and a program, and particularly relates to an information processing device and method, recording medium, and program appropriate for use in searching for homepages etc. set up in a network.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, the number of homepages set up on the Internet has increased with the proliferation of the Internet itself. Homepages are not just being set up by businesses but also by individual users, meaning that the number of homepages is colossal. Searching out homepages carrying information desired by a user from this enormous number of homepages is therefore very troublesome.
In order to alleviate such troublesomeness, homepages commonly referred to as “search engines” such as, for example, “Yahoo” (trademark), “goo” (trademark), “Excite” (trademark), “Google” (trademark) and “Netscape” (trademark) have started to provide services to enable desired homepages to be searched simply by inputting keywords, etc.
These search engines are suited to looking for homepages containing keywords inputted by the user that have similar features to those of the keywords, but it is often the case that there are pages, other than those successfully found, that the user would probably have liked to have seen.
As a result, several search engines have started related page search engine services referred to as “related page searches,” etc. For example, there exist patent document 1 and a related page search for pages returned by Google search results, a related page search button in the Google Toolbar, and a related site search button displayed in browsers such as Netscape Navigator.
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-149698 (pages 4 to 7).
Searches employing a related page search engine search for pages related to a page a user is currently browsing or for prescribed pages included in search results returned by the search engine. This search takes into consideration the WWW (World Wide Web) link structure, but it is not necessarily the case that searches for related pages are carried out with high precision.